


Ostentatious

by cloudtopcruise



Category: Free!
Genre: Future Fic, M/M, Strippers & Strip Clubs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-19
Updated: 2014-07-13
Packaged: 2017-12-29 20:03:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1009502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudtopcruise/pseuds/cloudtopcruise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dammit Makoto, we all could've saved a lot of trouble if you told everyone about the stripping thing earlier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. he had the same muscles and everything

Haruka had once assumed that the years would cause Nagisa’s trickster nature to dissipate, that it was just a trait that he would grow out of eventually. When he came to terms with the fact that it was _never_ going away, he at least thought that everyone else would realize that Nagisa was not to be trusted if he made a plan without disclosing the full details ahead of time, if even then. But Haruka was wrong about that, too.

Alarm bells went off the moment Nagisa suggested a get-together between the five of them. Makoto and Rei had agreed without trouble (though Makoto later claimed to be busy with something important, so maybe he was more observant than Haruka had given him credit for), and though Rin took more convincing, he eventually went along with it just to shut Nagisa up.

Haruka knew whatever Nagisa had in mind would likely be painful, for everyone, and he held out longer than Rin had, but even he had to give in after days of prodding from not only Nagisa, but Makoto as well (who still ended up backing out on him, the traitor).

Although, with as much foresight as he had, he really hadn’t expected Nagisa to bring them to a male strip club.

Rin looks fairly exasperated, and Haruka can’t tell if it’s more toward Nagisa for bringing them there or himself for letting it happen. Rei, on the other hand, looks downright _mortified_ , refusing to look up for any reason and gripping his drink hard like it’s a lifeline. Haruka can’t see what his own expression looks like, but he can’t imagine it looks any less impassive than it normally does.

Nagisa is the only one who seems to be enjoying himself at all, talking animatedly, occasionally wandering away from the group to sit close to the stage, high off of both alcohol and the atmosphere. He seems so at home that Haruka begins to wonder how many times he’d been here.

“Where the hell do you even _find_ these places?” Rin asks when Nagisa returns from his most recent bout of tossing money at men on the stage.

Nagisa doesn’t sit in his seat, preferring to put his hands on top of it and bounce up and down excitedly. “I hear some things!” he says cheerfully. “It’s fun though, right? Eh?”

The looks that the three of them give him are downright venomous.

“Should’ve just been like Makoto and ditched you guys,” Rin mutters. Haruka wonders, vaguely, how Makoto would react if he _had_ come, and is a little glad they didn’t have to corrupt him like that.

“Don’t be like that!” Nagisa’s eyes are a little unfocused as he pouts. “You haven’t even been looking at the strippers! That’s missing the whole point!”

“You didn’t even have the decency to bring us to a club with girls,” Rin says. Haruka isn’t really sure what he’s trying to prove with that. 

“You’re no fun at all!” Nagisa whines. He looks hopefully at Rei and Haruka. “You guys are having fun, right?” Haruka throws him the blankest stare he can muster up. Rei doesn’t say anything, though his hand does tighten around his glass. 

“C’m _on_ , you guys, I thought…” Nagisa is interrupted by Rin suddenly choking on his drink, so far the only thing to actually make Rei look up.

It takes Rin a few seconds to recover, and the first words out of his mouth when he does are, “Holy _shit_.”

Haruka thinks he’s referring to that near death experience until he sees Rin’s gaze fixed on something behind him. Curious now, Haruka turns around to look.

Haruka doesn’t see what’s so shocking at first. Everything’s the same as it's been the whole night: people scattered around the club, other people standing close to the stage, a man on the stage stripping. Or, well, about to strip, as it seemed that someone new had just come up. Haruka looks him over, and that’s when he realizes.

He recognizes the man on stage.

The lights in the club are bright and multicolored, drowning out the man's facial features, but it doesn't prevent Haruka from seeing the similarities. If it was someone he knew only vaguely, he might not have picked up on anything. But this man is so familiar that not even the flashing lights could disguise him. 

“I-Is that…” Rei’s voice only barely breaks through the haze around Haruka’s mind. It’s the first thing he’s said in a while, so he takes a sip of his drink (also for the first time) to clear his throat before continuing. “...Is that Makoto?”

So Haruka isn’t the only one who picked up on it. Judging by Rin’s earlier reaction, he'd probably come to that conclusion as well.

“Of course it’s not,” Rin says immediately. Haruka doesn’t bother turning to look at him. “Why the hell would he be in a place like this? It’s probably just someone that looks like him.”

Haruka doesn’t really register the man’s movements, his eyes instead glued to his face. He tries to find something different about him, any missing detail, any extraneous detail, _something_ to show that it wasn’t Makoto up there.

“Woo-hooooo! Go Mako-chan!” Haruka is brought out of his scrutinizing by a sudden exclamation from Nagisa behind him. He was pretty damn loud, even through the background music, and Haruka is fairly certain that if he’d turned to look, he would’ve seen Nagisa jumping around and waving his arms in the air.

The man looks toward them, confusion slowly replacing the sultry look he had previously. Haruka sees his eyes go wide, and his face turns bright red, and if Haruka had any doubts left, they went flying out the window.

Makoto quickly tries to save face and recover, facing away from them as he tries to get back into character. With there no longer being a need to study Makoto’s face, his eyes wander over more of him, and he can’t help but notice that the movements of the rest of his body seem somewhat reserved. He’s not familiar enough with these performances to know how it _should_ look, but it occurs to him that he’s comparing this now to the way Makoto swims. He knows how Makoto looks when he’s putting all his effort into something, and even though this is far from swimming, he can tell that Makoto is holding himself back.

He can’t help but feel a little bad that he seemed to have impeded Makoto’s performance.

Makoto continues to look anywhere in the room except where Haruka was sitting, keeping his gaze trained at the other end of the room as he runs his hands up his torso before reaching back to pull off his shirt. Haruka was well aware of how Makoto’s chest looked; he could probably say that he's seen Makoto without a shirt just as often as he's seen him with one. But not even he’s dense enough to think that Makoto in a swimsuit compares to this. The way he moves is slow and sensual, not the casual way he is on land or the dynamic way he is in the water. His expression changes the effect, too; it hasn't yet become exactly the same as it was before, but it’s still far more _sensual_ than Haruka is used to, almost predatory in nature. Toward the audience. 

Haruka's mouth suddenly seems dry, and he has to wonder if all his moisture had just shifted to his palms because he finds himself having to wipe them on his jeans.

Being turned on by Makoto wasn't anything new to him. It started before he'd even recognized sex as a desirable thing, and had continued on through high school and into adulthood. He never said anything out loud about his feelings, though he didn't necessarily think he did a great job at hiding them, either.

But no matter how aware his friends might be about his long-standing his crush, there was still a line that needed to be drawn. Haruka decided that line would be drawn at popping a boner over Makoto while sitting right next to Rei and Rin (but thankfully not Nagisa, at least, who seemed to have disappeared while Haruka wasn't watching).

“I’m going to the bathroom,” Haruka mumbles as he stands up. He doesn’t bother waiting for a response from either of his friends, though he had the impression that neither of them were paying attention to anything other than Makoto at the moment.

It takes a couple seconds after Haruka walks away before he realizes that he didn’t actually know where the bathroom is. Too proud to ask anyone for directions for it, he meanders around in search of one himself. He realizes too late, though, how dangerous that was, now that he’d left Makoto’s zone of eye contact avoidance.

He makes the mistake of glancing in the direction of the stage and sees Makoto looking directly at him. He’s still moving, and Haruka isn’t sure why he expected him to not be, but he still feels his face grow hot. Makoto’s hands have drifted down to his lower body, and his eyes don’t leave Haruka's, not even when he slides his pants down off of his legs, not even when he runs his hands over the front of the small pair of underwear that only barely conceals his dick, and that’s when Haruka has to look away and resume his search for the bathroom as fast as possible. 

Haruka finds the bathroom purely out of blind luck, and places his hands on either side of the sink as he tries to calm himself down. He briefly entertains the thought of just entering a stall to take care of things, but he doesn’t think that jerking off in the bathroom of a strip club because of Makoto is something he wants to experience.

He thinks he should be able to calm down easily enough without the temptation of Makoto being right in front of him, but the images are already too well-ingrained into his mind. It takes a long time and a lot of deep breaths before he feels ready to go back out into the club. Fortunately, Makoto isn't on the stage by the time he exits the bathroom. 

Nagisa rejoins the group at the same time Haruka does, and it takes him a second to work out that Nagisa had been up near the stage before. "Y'guys are so mean!" he whines. "Not even giving Mako-chan any tips..." The other three all give him looks of various incredulousness.

"And here I thought Makoto was the innocent one..." Rin says, looking thoroughly offended. 

Rin takes a long drink before looking at Haruka expectantly, Rei and Nagisa following suit shortly after. "...What?"

"Did you, uh, know about this...?" Rei asks, adjusting his glasses nervously. 

"No." The others look disbelieving, and really, Haruka can hardly believe it himself. It wasn’t like Makoto to hide things from him, even if it was something like...this.

“S-So it definitely couldn’t have been him!” Rei says. Haruka admires such powerful denial. “He wouldn’t keep secrets from Haruka, of course!”

“It was _so_ Mako-chan! It looked just like him, he had the same muscles and everything!” Nagisa insists. Everyone else ignores him. “We could have Gou-chan come ‘n’ confirm—” Rin stops ignoring him.

Haruka would entertain himself through watching Rin threaten Nagisa with bodily harm for so much as _daring_ to suggest bringing his sister to a place like this, but Rei is still looking at him. 

“...He doesn’t tell me everything,” Haruka says. Rei still looks like he wants to argue, but he doesn’t seem able to come up with anything new. “I’m going home.”

Rei nods stiffly and stands up, his drink left on the table still nearly full. “I think I’ll do that, too…” He glances briefly at Rin and Nagisa, but evidently decides that going home takes higher priority than breaking up their argument. Haruka agrees with the sentiment.

Haruka’s thoughts revolve entirely around Makoto on his way home, and persist when he walks through the door and flops down on his bed. He gets put off about sleeping when he figures those thoughts would leak into his dreams as well.

Aside from remembering how Makoto had looked, he fixates heavily on the fact that he didn’t _know_ Makoto would be there.

He’d told Rei that Makoto didn’t tell him everything, and that much was true, but those times were far and few between, and were mostly caused only by Makoto forgetting to bring things up right away. Haruka wonders just how long Makoto had been doing this, how long he had been keeping it secret and how long he had been planning to not speak about it. It was starting to stress him out. 

It's far too late to be thinking about these things, Haruka decides, so he decides to let it go.

...He could ask Makoto about it later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be bumped up to Explicit later, but since nothing explicit happens yet there is no need to taunt you with lies.
> 
> Come to think of it though, this was gonna be a PWP oneshot. What the hell happened


	2. you look good taking off your clothes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Friends don't let friends go to strip clubs by themselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I bet you my entire life the formatting got fucked up somewhere  
> Alternate chapter summary— flawless transitions: the fanfic

Haruka says absolutely nothing about it to Makoto the next day. Sometime after waking up in the morning, he decided he was better off acting like he _hadn’t_ spent the previous night watching Makoto take his clothes off in front of a group of people. Based on their reactions when he sees them again, Haruka determines that Rei and Rin decided to go that route, too. Nagisa doesn’t say anything about it, either, though that leads him to think that Nagisa just doesn’t remember the previous night’s events.

Haruka spends about 70% of Makoto’s free time hanging around him, so he can see all of this first-hand. Rei does a remarkable repeat performance of his actions the previous night, blushing in response to absolutely everything Makoto says, and keeps his eyes trained on Haruka even when Makoto is speaking.

"O-Oh, would you look at the time!" Rei stammers after seven minutes of non-conversation. 

Haruka can't help but notice that he didn't so much as glance at his watch before speaking.

Rin manages to be even worse about it. They run into him once, and he responds by nodding slightly before running off in the opposite direction.

"I guess everyone's a little busy today..." Makoto says. He smiles, though it's fairly obvious (at least to Haruka) that he feels hurt by it. He fully expects the two of them to give an earnest apology the next day, but it just ends up happening again. The day after, they don't end up seeing Rin at all, but Haruka thinks he saw him out of the corner of his eye once or twice.

Three days of this is too much, so Haruka decides to do something about it.

On day four, they run into Rei and Nagisa together, which makes it harder for Rei to run off like usual. Haruka takes advantage of this to try and confront the problem directly. "Rei," he says, an air of determination about him, "even if y—"

"Oh! Haru!" Makoto interjects suddenly. "I just remembered, Ren and Ran needed me for something, so I need to head home for a bit..." He flashes an apologetic smile before waving and walking off.

Haruka stares suspiciously after him; he's almost certain that he interrupted him on purpose.

Both Rei and Nagisa seem a little surprised by Makoto's abruptness, but Rei clears his throat and turns to Haruka after recovering. "Er...well, you were saying?"

"...Nevermind," Haruka says. He doesn't really want to have this conversation without Makoto around.

He makes his way to the Tachibana residence later to retrieve Makoto (who notably says nothing about what the twins needed him for). Tracking down Rin takes a lot more effort, but Haruka tries to bring things up as soon as they find him.

"R—" This time, he can't even get a word out before Makoto interrupts him.

"Ah, Rin, it's good to see you!" Makoto says. "How have things been?" There have probably been puddles less shallow than Makoto's words. Rin gives a reply equally lacking in substance before he bolts.

Part of Haruka wants to believe that Makoto's interruption was just a coincidence, but when it happens yet again with Rei the next day, and with Rin the day after that, Haruka can say with complete certainty that Makoto can tell what he's trying to bring up and isn't letting it happen.

Haruka had thought Rei and Rin's reluctance was his main problem, but now it was clear that he had to get through Makoto before he could make any progress with those two. And without a decent voice of reason around to stop him, Haruka gets the brilliant idea to confront Makoto right where he can’t deny it.

He at least doesn't want to go back to that place all by himself, so he locates Rin again (he was suddenly easier to find when Makoto wasn't around) so he can force him along.

"Rin," Haruka says, hoping he won't seem too apparent in his goals, "let’s go somewhere.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, sure.” Haruka's glad to have caught Rin off guard. “When?”

“Tonight.”

"Wait, I can't tonight," Rin says, frowning. "I have plans with Ai already."

"Bring him with you." Haruka wasn't one to be deterred so easily. "If you don't have a reservation or something, it's fine."

"I _meant_ ," Rin sighs, "we had plans between just the two of us."

"Is it a date?"

It was an open secret to everyone, everywhere that Rin had a _thing_ for Aiichiro— the only one who wasn’t aware that everyone else knew was Rin himself. He seemed to still be under the impression that denial would work on Haruka, and Haruka can tell he’s trying to think of a way to do so right now. 

"...Fine, we'll go with you," Rin says, like he has something to prove. Haruka rarely appreciates Rin’s sense of pride, but he’s glad for it now. "Where are we going?"

"It's a secret."

-

"I should've fucking known not to trust you," Rin hisses, loud enough to be heard over the music of the strip club, but quiet enough so Aiichiro wouldn't hear. "You're even worse than Nagisa!"

Aiichiro's reaction could be placed on the scale somewhere between Rin's and Rei's. He isn't snarling at anyone who walks by, and he isn't having a love affair with his glass to ignore his surroundings, either. Much like the two of them, though, he doesn’t exactly seem thrilled to be here. Haruka makes a mental note to apologize for ruining his not-date later.

"What the fuck are we even _here_ for?" Rin continues when Haruka fails to acknowledge his complaints.

"I wanted to speak to Makoto."

"You already speak to him every day! What do you need to be in _here_ for?" Rin doesn't pause for an answer before he continues with his barrage of demands. "And why am I here? You don't need _me_ to talk to him!"

Haruka makes a point to take a very slow drink before he responds. "I didn't want to come in here by myself,” he says. “And your shark teeth are good at scaring away predators."

"...You owe me for this," Rin mutters. Haruka’s surprised that he gave up so easily, but he wasn’t about to fight it, either.

Rin decides to focus his energy instead on making conversation with Aiichiro that Haruka doesn't find interesting enough to join. He finds himself bored enough to at least listen to their conversation, and after about an hour without seeing Makoto at all, Haruka started feeling restless. Somehow, having a goal in mind makes all the annoyances of the club stand out even more in his eyes. The music is way too loud, and it isn’t all that entertaining to listen to. He finds himself bothered both at the men on stage and the men who approach them (and proceed to be scared away by Rin), mostly for committing the crime of not being Makoto.

After a very long, Makoto-less time, Rin glances over at Haruka. "Hey, we're gonna head home."

"What. No." As anxious as Haruka was to not be sitting in a strip club, he still hadn't seen Makoto yet.

"We weren't planning on staying out very late, anyway," Rin says. He pauses before continuing, and has the look he gets every time he’s about to say something he knows he’ll regret later. "I'll, uh, stay longer next time, if you _have_ to come back again, I guess."

Haruka thinks he sees a flash of disappointment on Aiichiro's face; he maybe feels just a little bad for fucking with the guy's Rin-time so much. "...Good."

He gets the feeling that the two are grateful that Haruka’s route home diverges from theirs fairly quickly, but at the same time he doesn't find himself caring very much.

Haruka plops down on his couch once he arrives home and pulls his phone out of his pocket; Makoto had insisted he carry it around with him after they graduated, since not having school together allowed for less time in which Makoto could supervise him. He stares blankly at it for a solid 20 seconds before he finally goes through his contacts for Makoto’s number.

Makoto picks up the phone after about five rings. “Haru!? Are you alright!? Did something happen!?” There’s so much alarm in his voice that it catches Haruka off guard.

Right. He’d almost forgotten, despite carrying his phone around more often, he hadn’t really started _calling_ people more often. “No, nothing happened.”

“Oh… Haru, you really scared me!” Haruka is somewhat distracted by the faint club music he can hear in the background. “Did you need something, then…?”

“You,” Haruka says, and backpedals when he hears Makoto’s squeak of surprise. “...You should come over. I’m bored.”

"O-Oh, right...I'm sorry, Haru, but I'm busy tonight..." Makoto's tone still seems worried. "I think I told you that before, didn't I...?"

"I don't remember," Haruka lies.

"Well...I really need to get going, but we can spend time together tomorrow, okay?" Haruka responds with only a vague grunt, but it's apparently enough for Makoto, since he says goodbye and hangs up.

Haruka feels disappointed, though he really doesn’t have much _reason_ to be. He already knew Makoto wasn’t going to be available, so it wasn’t as though he was faced with any new disappointments. Even if Makoto hadn’t been...working...now was kind of late to be scheduling any plans anyway.

He calls Makoto a second time in the morning, which is really setting a new record for him. It takes Makoto longer to pick up this time, and he still sounds mostly asleep when he speaks. “Haru…? Is something wrong?”

“You said we’d spend time together.”

"Right, right." He hears Makoto chuckle on the other end. "Wait for me to wake up a bit first, okay?"

"Okay," Haruka says. "...Also. Sorry for calling you last night."

"You don't have to apologize for that," Makoto says.

"Remind me when you're going to be busy more often," Haruka says. He wonders if his agenda is a little too transparent.

"Umm...well, I'm busy again on Thursday night..." Makoto says. "But I'll be free every other night this week!"

"Alright," Haruka says. "...Come over in about an hour."

Makoto agrees, and once he hangs up, Haruka continues making his world record by calling Rin.

"Don't schedule anything for Thursday night."

-

Rin doesn't look any less unhappy to be at the club for a third time, but not having been tricked into it makes him seem more resigned than before.

"So you're sure he's working here today?" Rin asks.

"I'm sure." Haruka had seen Makoto head out in this direction, and he acted flustered when Haruka questioned him, so he'd accepted that as confirmation.

Rin sighs loudly (exaggeratedly), but at least seems to accept that he has a reason to be there.

Even with the knowledge that Makoto _was_ there, waiting for him wasn't any less taxing than it was before. He accepted conversation with Rin this time, since Aiichiro wasn't there to provide a conversation for Haruka to listen in on. Mostly, though, time was passed through drinking, watching Rin scare away anyone who tried to approach them, more drinking, listening to Rin rant about his recent problems, but especially drinking.

The next time Haruka reaches for his drink, Rin slaps his hand over it. "I think you're done."

Haruka stares blankly at Rin for a while before answering. "...Didn't finish."

"Okay, it's time to give up, we're going home," Rin says as he stands up. Haruka pouts at him.

"Nooo, we're looking for Makoto," he says. "Gotta wait."

"Ugh, for Christ's...oh, shit, hey!" Haruka doesn't feel like looking at whatever Rin's yelling at, so he rests his head on the table. "Oi! Makoto— hey, don't walk away from me, I can fucking see you!"

Haruka almost looks up at that, but he doesn't actually move until he hears Makoto's voice next to him. "Haru? Are you alright?"

Haruka turns and looks triumphantly at Rin before turning back again to speak to Makoto. "I had some'n to tell you."

"What is it?" Makoto asks. His voice is warm and soft, and it makes Haruka want to nuzzle against him. So he does.

"...I don't remember," Haruka murmurs, pressing his face against Makoto's abdomen.

"Hey, help me bring him home, will you?" Rin says. Haruka almost wants to argue with him, but since he's already fulfilled _part_ of his goal, he figures that's good enough for the day anyway. And maybe, if they had to go back another day, they could watch Makoto strip again.

Rin and Makoto talk about things while they all but carry Haruka back to his house. Haruka doesn't feel like listening, but he's at least glad that they're speaking now. That was another one of his goals, wasn't it? He sure was getting a ton of things accomplished.

Rin leaves once they arrive at Haruka's house, but Makoto goes the extra mile to make sure Haruka makes it inside safely. He actually picks up Haruka at that point to bring him over to his bed, and Haruka vaguely thinks about what it'd be like to be carried to a bedroom by Makoto under different circumstances.

Makoto places him down on his bed, but Haruka clings to him determinedly. "Stay here," he says, tugging on Makoto's sleeves.

Makoto smiles that stupid lovely smile of his. "You should rest."

Haruka frowns and grabs at the sides of Makoto's face, pulling him down until their noses touch. "Later," he mumbles. "...Y'know, you look good taking off your clothes."

Makoto blushes, which makes Haruka smile a little. Even if he was a stripper now, he still acted the same as ever. "You think so?"

"Mm. Do that for me, too, sometime," Haruka says. Then he pulls Makoto's face down the rest of the way until their lips touch.

Makoto doesn't really react, staying still up until Haruka runs his tongue across his lip. "Goodnight, Haru-chan," he says, standing upright again.

"I'm not done yet," Haruka whines, but Makoto's already left the room.

When he doesn't hear the sound of his front door, Haruka calls out to him again. "Kiss me again in the morning, then!"

Haruka waits until he hears the answering, “Alright, Haru-chan!” before he lets himself drift off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm 70% sure the next chapter will bump the rating up. This will be the last chapter young teens will read sorry I don't make the rules


	3. probably a really stupid bullshit reason.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything is resolved happily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually don't know just how explicit something has to be to be Explicit but I dunno, I feel like we're not there yet. Eventually.
> 
> Funfact I got locked out of this document a lot while writing. It was trying to protect the world but unfortunately I was too relentless.

Haruka’s head is pounding when he wakes up and there’s a conspicuous gap in his memory to go alongside that. Despite not being able to remember the goings-on of the previous night, he knows immediately that his planned failed. Miserably, if he had to guess. He buries his head into his pillow, fully intending to stay there for the rest of the day. 

The only thing that drives Haruka to move is the sound of someone making noise in the kitchen. One of his first thoughts was that it was Rin, coming by to eat his food without asking, but a quick glance at the clock reveals that it's still rather early, and Rin didn't usually go anywhere until around noon. He's too tired and his head hurts too much to make him feel much panic, but he drags himself up and into the kitchen to investigate anyway. He's only a little surprised when it turns out to be Makoto.

He's standing at the kitchen counter, apparently cooking something, and Haruka walks up to him to press his head against his back. "So what brings you here."

Makoto jumps a bit in surprise, but recovers fairly quickly. "Oh! Good morning, Haru!" he says cheerfully. "And...I spent the night, actually."

"Hm. Why." Makoto staying over wasn't anything new, but Haruka at least hoped that he could fill in his memory a little.

Makoto laughs nervously, which isn't all that comforting. "You got really drunk last night, so Rin and I brought you back home..." he says. "And I stayed to make sure you were alright."

Even from such a brief description, Haruka feels sort of like a failure. "...Thanks."

Makoto finally turns around and gives him an awkward smile. "I figured you would be too exhausted to make breakfast, so I went ahead and made something for you," he says. "It's kind of simple, but, well, you know I'm not as good a cook as you, Haru."

Haruka glances at the counter behind him. There’s a bowl of rice and a piece of fish, though from that brief glance he can tell that the fish is burnt. “...Thanks.”

Makoto’s smile brightens a bit. “Anyway, I have to get going now. I hope you feel better soon!” He slides out past Haruka, and closes the door lightly when he leaves. 

Haruka watches the door for a while before he turns back toward the food on the counter. He knows he doesn't have to put up any false enjoyment for Makoto's sake when he's not even around, but he starts eating anyway. The rice is undercooked, hard enough that he can hear a crunch on a few chews, and the fish is burnt even more than Haruka had first thought. He finishes every bite anyway. 

-

"Rei-chan has something important to tell you!" Nagisa looks strangely determined, while Rei has an incredibly sheepish expression. Nagisa had been the one to heatedly insist that Makoto (not Haruka, but he tagged along anyway) come meet the two of them, so Haruka is a little surprised that Rei is the one who speaks. 

"That's...that's right, well..." Rei fidgets with his watch for a moment, but then looks seriously up at Makoto. "I'm sorry for the way I've been acting around you lately. That was very wrong of me, and I hope you'll be able you forgive me for it."

Makoto smiles softly at that. It's not incredibly different from many of his normal smiles, but Haruka picks up the strongest feeling of relief coming off of him. "Don't worry about, Rei," he says. "Of course I forgive you."

Rei gives a small smile in return and says a quiet thank you. Nagisa's reaction is much more animated. "Glad we've got that sorted out!" he says loudly. With how invested he is, Haruka wonders how much of Rei's decision to apologize was encouraged by Nagisa. "What was it that got you avoiding Mako-chan like that, anyway? That's really not like you, Rei-chan!"

Rei's face immediately goes bright red. "I-I...that's..." he stammers. "It's not really anything important..."

"That's right," Makoto says. He manages to still look casual, even with the way the topic has shifted. "All that matters is that everything's settled now, right?"

"I guess..." Nagisa pouts, obviously still curious. But he seems to let it go for now. "Well, that was about it! Let's get going, Rei-chan!" He attaches himself to Rei's arm and steers him away. Watching them head off, Haruka has the suspicion that Nagisa would try and nag an explanation out of Rei anyway. He hopes that Rei can withstand something like that.

"...We should see if Rin's going to apologize, too," Haruka said. If not, he was going to force an apology out of him anyway.

"Oh, he actually has already..." Makoto said. "We talked about while we were bringing you home the other night."

"...Oh." Seemed like everything turned out just fine. "Never mind, then."

-

There isn't much for Haruka to complain about anymore. Following Rei's apology, everything seemed to be going as usual for the five of them. He's accomplished all that he set out to do involving that club. Everything's resolved, even if many of the resolutions came without Haruka's aid, so that whole mess could easily become something he would just forget about. There really wasn't any reason to so much as think about anything that had gone on in the past couple days

And yet he shows up at the club again the next time he knows Makoto's working there.

At this point, he almost feels a little bad about dragging Rin here so much.

Rin hasn't said anything to Haruka since the moment they arrived. He seems to be ignoring the surroundings, but he looks so oddly focused that Haruka doesn't think it's just an avoidance tactic.

"...So," Rin says suddenly, almost surprising Haruka a little. He almost hadn't expected Rin to move for the rest of the night. "What's the deal with you and Makoto, anyway?"

"Meaning...?"

"You've known him since elementary school," Rin starts. He would know, he was there, so Haruka doesn't voice any confirmation. "And you've been into him since then, haven't you?"

"Not the entire time," Haruka says. The way he remembered it, he had been unsure about his feelings for quite a few years.

"Ugh, whatever, close enough. What I mean is that it's been a while," Rin says. "And it's obvious that Makoto feels the same way."

"That's subjective."

"No it's not. Ask him out already."

Haruka turns away to stare down hard at the table. His feelings for Makoto, despite his poor attempts at hiding them, weren't really a topic he liked talking about. He hated talking about his emotions as much as it was, let alone emotions as strong as this. It would always bring up a flurry of new, incredibly unwanted feelings, too. Longing, regret, disappointment, nothing he liked being saddled with at all. "There's a reason I haven't..."

"Oh yeah?" Haruka doesn't look up, but Rin sounds unconvinced. "It's probably a really stupid bullshit reason."

Haruka shrugs. Suppressing his feelings was worth dealing with Rin's misplaced irritation. "You can think what you want."

Rin doesn't say anything for a while after that, which Haruka is thankful for. He keeps staring down at the table, the two of them holding an uncomfortable silence in the middle of the booming music of the club.

Haruka hears the sound of cheers coming from the crowd he's not looking at just before Rin speaks again. "Uh, Haru—" Haruka still doesn't look up. "Makoto's on stage." He doesn't look up at that, either.

It probably wouldn't be right of Haruka to watch him, anyway. Makoto was his friend, and he wasn't here stripping for his friends, after all. With how much he'd been keeping it a secret, it obviously wasn't something he wanted to show Haruka. It was wrong to even be in here, especially more than once. 

He tries his best to block out any sounds coming toward the direction of the stage. Thinking about so many other people seeing Makoto like this makes his stomach turn a little. The only noise he doesn't manage to mostly ignore is loud cheering long after Makoto had gotten on stage, and Haruka assumes that means Makoto's finished his performance. 

"So...I really have to get going," Rin says. His chair squeaks when he pulls it out to stand up. "Don't get yourself killed or anything while I'm gone, right?"

"I'll try," Haruka replies, finally looking up. A quick glance at the stage confirms that Makoto had indeed left. 

Rin leaves, and Haruka sits in silence again. He can't remember now what it was that made him want to return here for a third time. That thought drives him to stand up and leave the club. 

He doesn't get very far. He leans against a wall close to the club's entrance and slumps down to sit on the ground. It's kind of cold, and sitting in the club would certainly feel warmer, but he doesn't really want to go back inside. He waits for Makoto, and his thoughts are centered around him as he sits there on the ground by himself. 

"Haru...?" Haruka finally hears Makoto's voice, though he doesn't know quite how long it's been since he's been waiting outside. He glances up to see Makoto standing over him, looking down curiously.

Haruka drags himself to his feet. "I was waiting for you." 

"Oh...? Did you need me for something?"

"I don't remember."

Makoto smiles a little, which is when Haruka notices how _tired_ he seems. The darkness makes it hard to see, but everything else Haruka can perceive about him just feels off, somehow. He's concerned, but at the same time, he doesn't know what he should say.

"Haru, you're...going back to your place, aren't you?" Haruka nods. "If it isn't too much trouble, could I stay over tonight...?"

"Of course." Haruka's first instinct is to grab Makoto's hand, so he keeps his hands shoved in his pockets the whole trip back. 

Makoto looks about ready to pass out by the time they get to Haruka's place. "You can go ahead and sleep on my bed," Haruka says quickly. 

"I don't want to kick you out of your own room or anything..." Makoto mumbles, though he starts trudging toward the bedroom anyway.

Haruka follows him quietly, chewing on his lip before he responds. "...If that bothers you, we can both sleep in here at the same time."

Haruka holds his breath while he waits for Makoto's reaction. They had slept together— next to each other— plenty of times before, but it had been a while since the last time. It just didn't seem like something two adults that weren't _together_ would do.

Haruka doesn't really expect a positive response, so he's extremely surprised when Makoto's arms wrap around his waist and he's pulled onto the bed with him. Makoto pulls him in close, Haruka's back pressed right up against him. Haruka can feel his breathing against the back of his neck. 

Makoto's arms are so tight around him that it's a little painful, but Haruka decides not to bring it up. He can tell that something's bothering Makoto, so he might as well let him do this if it makes him feel better.

His grip on Haruka loosens up after a while, and his hands begin to wander. Haruka feels his hands glide up and down his torso, a gesture that Haruka may have felt to be comforting, had he been in need of comfort.

Haruka gasps quietly when he feels fingertips against his skin, lightly touching the exposed patch where Haruka's shirt had risen up a bit. Makoto's hands drift even higher, moving up underneath Haruka's shirt. Haruka wonders if he can feel how fast his heart is beating. 

But more than that, Haruka wonders what Makoto is trying to _do_ , exactly. They were very close with each other, yes, and Makoto tended to get touchy-feely at times, sure, but this is different from anything else they had done together. It was really intimate, even for them, and it was really bordering on being sexual in nature.

There really wasn't much ambiguous about it. Haruka doesn't know who he's trying to kid by thinking it was just "bordering".

Haruka opens his mouth to bring this up, but his words die in his throat when one of Makoto's hands trails downwards. He reaches down to cup Haruka through his jeans, his touch light but enough to give Haruka the urge to press forward into his hand. 

"Haru..." Makoto speaks softly, even though they are alone in Haruka's house, and his voice shakes noticeably. "I-Is it alright if I...I mean, do you want to..."

Haruka finds himself speechless, actually speechless, not just a decision to avoid conversation. He has too many thoughts going at once— _of course he wants to, how long has he been waiting for this moment, why did it take this long to happen?_

He's suddenly made very, very aware of how much he wants this. He responds the moment he can use his voice again. 

"...Sure."

Makoto moves surprisingly fast after that, turning Haruka around so he can press their lips together. His lips are soft, but they press hard against Haruka's with a sense of something like urgency. Haruka is dazed for a moment before he responds, bringing his hand up to tangle his fingers in Makoto's hair. He parts his lips after feeling Makoto do so, a soft noise coming from the back of his throat. 

It feels as though something like a floodgate had opened within Haruka. He normally tries his best to keep his desire for Makoto bottled up, but knowing that Makoto wanted him now…

Haruka doesn't get the chance to think much more before Makoto moves again, turning Haruka so he's on his back and Makoto's leaning over him. He leans his head down to connect their lips again and drags his hands underneath Haruka's shirt. Haruka can't think of anything to do except let his arms drape uselessly over Makoto's back. 

Haruka gasps when Makoto’s mouth presses against his neck; he hadn’t expected something as simple as that to feel good, and it makes him grip Makoto's shirt tightly in his fists. Makoto bites down a bit, and Haruka makes a soft noise again. Makoto's hands start moving down, working Haruka's pants open.

There's a bad feeling nagging at Haruka, though.

Something just feels _wrong_ to him, for some reason, and that thought should be completely strange to him, but it's not. There's still that sense of urgency Haruka had noticed before coming off of Makoto. It's like he's rushing this, for some reason, and Makoto isn't really the type to rush things. Especially not something like this. It feels less like this is something Makoto wants to do, but rather something that he wants to get over with. 

Makoto still has his lips against Haruka's neck, and he's now got his fingers wrapped around Haruka's cock, and Haruka is harder than he's been in a long time, in a position he's wanted to be in for as long as he can imagine, but just that thought is enough to make any happiness he may have felt quickly dissipate.

Haruka grabs onto Makoto's wrist to pull him off and pushes his head away from his neck. "Makoto, wai..." Haruka has to pause and collect himself. He can hear how heavy with arousal his own voice sounds, but he still needs to end this. "...I changed my mind. I don't want to."

Haruka turns his head to the side so he doesnt have to watch Makoto's reaction. "O-Oh...alright..." Makoto says. "We don't have to..."

Makoto moves off of Haruka to lie down next to him again. He faces the opposite direction this time, and Haruka hesitantly turns to his side as well. The bed isn't quite large enough for two people, and Haruka's back is pressed right up against Makoto's.

Makoto says something else, but it's so soft that Haruka can't make out the words. Haruka wants to ask him to repeat himself, but he can't find his voice enough to speak again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I accidentally ended up with like a plot so next update I will probably write a real summary. Ok.


	4. secret stripper double life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haruka isn't very great at problem solving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to say a lot of things in the notes this chapter, but my laptop is being repaired and I don't want to type it all out on my phone. Next time.  
> Other note, if the paragraphs aren't spaced out correctly it's because I'm on mobile and can't easily fix these things, which I will fix as soon as I get my laptop back. If the paragraphs are fine then yay never mind.

Haruka is facing the other way when he wakes up, staring at the back of Makoto's head. Even though he can’t see his face, he can sense that Makoto’s already woken up. He almost can’t believe that Makoto had stayed this long; he’d expected him to be gone before Haruka would even have the chance to wake up. Gently, he reaches over to set his hand on Makoto's arm.

Makoto tenses up a bit in surprise, but he relaxes again after a few seconds. "Ah... Good morning, Haru,” he says, but he's still turned away.

"Good morning." An uncomfortable silence falls over the two of them, and Haruka begins mulling over in his mind whether or not he should bring up what happened before. He knows it’s important that they talk about it at some point, but it might be a little too much to discuss so early in the morning. On the other hand, if he waits too long, he feels like it might never come up again. Makoto has already proved his ability to avoid talking about something. But before he can come to a real decision, Makoto breaks the silence himself.

"About...about last night..." Makoto sounds wary, like he's about to step through a minefield. Haruka feels about the same. "We can just...forget about all that… Just pretend that never happened, okay?"

Haruka isn’t exactly surprised by Makoto’s decision, but he _is_ caught off guard by how resistant he suddenly feels toward it. He doesn't want to pretend that it didn’t happen. He wants to remember how Makoto's body was pressed up against him. He wants to remember the way Makoto's lips felt on his skin. He wants to remember what it was like to be so intimate with Makoto, in a way he’d never been before. He wants to know why it happened in the first place, and most importantly, why it didn’t feel right.

"I guess, but..." Haruka says, his voice quiet. "Why did you want to...?"

"I said we should pretend it didn't happen, didn't I?" Makoto cuts him off, a feeling of impatience in his voice that makes Haruka's frown deepen.

"Right...didn't happen." Haruka isn't happy with that decision at all, but there isn't much that can be done about it. 

There is another long pause before Makoto sits up, still not bothering to turn and face Haruka. “Um…” he says cautiously, "I was going to ask before, if I could stay here for a couple days... I'd understand if you don't want me to, though."

Haruka goes quiet for a few moments, feeling his face heat up and feeling thankful that Makoto isn’t looking at him. The fact that Makoto would still want to stay after what happened made his heart skip a beat in a way he couldn’t really explain.

"No, it's fine...you can stay," Haruka says. He wonders if he sounds particularly enthusiastic.

Makoto finally turns to look at him. "Thank you..." he says, smiling gently. "Is it alright if I bring my things over later tonight...?"

"Sure, go ahead," Haruka says. His heart is beating very rapidly, and he tries his best to ignore it.

Makoto’s smile brightens, almost enough that Haruka smiles back. “Thank you,” he says again. He gets up out of the bed, stretching his arms out above his head. “I’ll be back later, then!” He turns to leave, and Haruka watches him from his place on the bed.

Not even a minute after Makoto leaves, Haruka hears the sound of the front door opening again. He assumes Makoto’s come back for something, until he hears Rin’s voice call out. _”Yo, Haru!”_

The prospect of ignoring him in favor of laying unmoving in bed is very tempting, but he stands and leaves the room anyway.

Rin takes one look at him before saying, “What, did you and Makoto just bang?”

Haruka really isn’t in the mood to hold a conversation like this, especially not with Rin. “What gives you that idea?” he asks, and immediately mentally kicks himself for not thinking to change the subject.

Rin starts counting off on his fingers. “You have a hickey, I just ran into Makoto outside, and also, your dick’s still hanging out,” he says. “Speaking of which, put that away. Fucking hell, Haru.”

Haruka turns to fix his pants, though less out of modesty and more to keep Rin from noticing that his face has gone red. “Great detective work as that was,” he says, “we didn’t, actually.”

“Uh-huh.” Rin sounds completely disbelieving, but Haruka can’t really fault him for that. The evidence is kind of damning. “Explain all that, then.”

“We started having sex,” Haruka says, turning back around. “...Then we stopped.”

Rin crosses his arms, eyebrows drawn together in confusion. “What do you mean, you stopped?”

“I don’t feel like talking about it.”

Haruka didn’t really expect Rin to drop the subject so easily, so he isn’t surprised when he continues. “What, like, did something come up?”

“Not really.”

“Then what the hell did you stop for?” Rin asks. “It can’t be _that_ hard to explain, Haru.”

“It’s not, but I don’t want to,” Haruka says. He figures now is a good time to finally take the opportunity to change the subject. "What did you even come here for, anyway.”

"Oh, right." Rin makes a beeline for the kitchen and opens the refrigerator door. "I wanted eggs."

"...So what are you doing in _my_ refrigerator," Haruka asks. He'd raise an issue of it, but he’s too tired to want to bother with an argument.

"Because Rei's out of eggs. Duh," Rin replies. That might have been an acceptable explanation, if Rin actually lived with Rei. "Speaking of Rei," he says, "I was just about to head over to his place. You should come with."

"Why."

"We’re not done with this conversation," Rin says. He pulls a carton of eggs from the fridge and holds it under his arm. "And I don’t have time to wait around here for you to decide to say something.”

It takes a lot of words of encouragement from Rin, ranging from, "C'mon already" to "Move your fucking ass, Haru", before Haruka can actually be convinced to leave the house.

Rei looks surprised to see them when they get there, and Haruka figures that Rin hadn’t bothered to warn him about any visits ahead of time. "Hm? Did you two need something?" Rei asks, adjusting his glasses.

"I brought eggs since you keep complaining about me eating your food," Rin says. Rei moves to take the carton from him, but Rin holds it close and walks past him into the apartment. "Also, Haru wants to talk about his feelings."

"Your feelings?" Rei asks, turning to Haruka curiously.

"Rin wants me to talk about my feelings," Haruka clarifies, walking into the apartment after Rin. 

Rei follows them. He looks a little put off by the intrusion, but if he is, he doesn’t say anything about it. "Did something happen...?"

Rin walks immediately into the living room and lays out on the couch, taking up more space than necessary. "Haru and Makoto almost had sex but then they didn't."

"Really...?" Rei looks toward Haruka, his gaze flicking down to Haruka's neck for a brief moment. 

"...He was being weird about it," Haruka says, pressing his hand against his neck self consciously. "So I didn't want to."

"What the hell does 'weird' mean, anyway?" Rin asks. 

"I wasn't speaking to you."

"Whatever. But y'know, this kind of wishy-washy bull you do all the time is why you're still a virgin," Rin says. He sighs heavily. "Seriously, not even Rei's a virgin at this point. You're like last place here."

"Wait, what's that supposed to mean?" Rei asks, offended. Rin ignores him.

"Makoto hasn't had sex before, either," Haruka points out. 

"Who knows, maybe he has," Rin says. Haruka narrows his eyes at him. "Since he's apparently been living this secret stripper double life without telling us."

Rei suddenly looks concerned. "Er, be careful talking about that, Nagisa's—"

As if on cue, Nagisa slides into the room, wearing one of Rei's butterfly shirts and not a lot else. "Mako-chan's a stripper!?"

Nagisa's eyes are wide and excited, while everyone else is the picture of exasperation. "I knew it! I knew I wasn't imagining things!" he says, bouncing on the soles of his feet. "No wonder I was down so much cash after we all went to that club! I wouldn't splurge that much on just anyone, y'know."

Rei sighs heavily. "Please...don't tell Makoto you know about that."

"My lips are sealed!" Nagisa says. No one really trusts him much on that point, but there isn’t much to be done about it.

He bounces in the rest of the way and sits down cross-legged on the floor, looking at Haruka expectantly. "Soooo, then...what’s this about sex with Mako-chan I’m hearing?” Haruka wonders if it’s at all possible to keep a secret around here.

“We were going to have sex, and then we didn't,” Haruka says. He’s already sick of the subject, and almost wishes he’d listened to Makoto and pretended it hadn’t happened.

“Well, duh, I heard that part!" Nagisa says, pouting. "Why'd you guys not do it? We've all been waiting for, like, years, you know."

Haruka lets out a heavy sigh. Nagisa's more persistent than even Rin, and Haruka doesn't want to deal with being asked about it more than he already has. There isn’t much use in prolonging it much more, anyway. “...It didn’t feel like he really wanted to do it,” he says. “Like it was just...an obligation or something. So I told him I wanted to stop.”

“What?” Nagisa whines, looking disappointed. “Why wouldn’t Mako-chan wanna have sex with you?” 

Rei clears his throat. “I think the real question should be why he would feel _obligated_ to have sex with Haruka."

“I’d ask him, but he says we should forget about it," Haruka says. 

“Just keep bothering him until he gives up,” Rin suggests. “He can’t ignore you forever.”

“That’s the kind of thinking that gets people arrested.”

“W-Well, anyway,” Rei interjects. “When are you meeting up with him next?”

“Tonight,” Haruka says. “...He’s going to be moving in with me for a couple days.”

“Aww, that’s so romantic!” Nagisa practically squeals. Rei shushes him.

“That helps, if you’re going to be around him so often,” Rei says. “So, when you see him tonight, I’m sure that he’ll explain if you tell him that it’s worrying you.”

“Can’t hurt to try, at least,” Rin says, shrugging.

“Maybe…” Haruka says. Still, he gets the feeling that it won’t end up being that simple.

-

Haruka feels like he's arrived home too early. Makoto said he would be back later, but had never clarified when exactly _later_ was. It makes Haruka feel on edge the entire time he waits, like he expects Makoto to arrive at any second. The feeling doesn't go away for a while; by the time he hears a knock at the door, it’s well past nightfall.

Makoto walks in carrying a large bag over his shoulder. “Ah, I know this looks like kind of a lot…” he says, “but I really won’t be staying for too long, I promise.”

“You can stay here as long as you want,” Haruka says. Part of him says to ask Makoto _why_ he wants to stay, but he can't quite bring himself to do so.

Makoto looks a little torn over where he should put his bags down, but Haruka steers him toward the bedroom. “...There isn’t a ton of room in this place,” Haruka says. “So you can sleep in here, as long as you’re staying.”

“You’re sure…?” Makoto asks, face flushing. Haruka nods. 

Makoto smiles meekly before setting his bag down on thr floor, and he starts shifting through it to unpack some things. He takes out toothbrushes and a comb and other toiletries and leaves to place them in Haruka’s bathroom. Haruka takes a peek in his bag while he’s gone; for someone who won’t be staying long, he’s packed an awful lot of clothing. He can’t say he really minds the possibility of Makoto staying for much more than a couple days, though.

Makoto returns shortly and stands awkwardly near the bed. “Do you mind if I lay down…? I’m kind of tired…” he says.

“Go ahead,” Haruka says. Makoto lays out on the bed quickly, taking up much more space than Haruka usually does. Haruka starts to wonder if sleeping there with him for days will really come as easily as he thought.

Makoto closes his eyes, and that’s when Haruka notices. The skin around his left eye is discolored, a bit darker than the rest of his face. Curious, Haruka walks closer and swipes his thumb lightly over Makoto’s eyelid.

Makoto sits up immediately, grabbing Haruka’s wrist hard enough to hurt and slapping his other hand over his eye. Haruka must look started, because Makoto’s expression quickly becomes apologetic. “I...S-Sorry, Haru…” he says, slowly releasing his grip. “Please don’t touch there…”

Haruka looks down at his thumb, seeing that makeup had wiped off onto it. He wants to look at Makoto’s eye for comparison, but his hand is still pressed over it. “Did something happen?”

“Just an accident…” Makoto says, dropping his hand back down. As expected, the space Haruka had wiped over is even darker now. “Don’t worry about it.”

That only makes Haruka feel more concerned. Makoto had never been a good liar, so it seems obvious now that he's hiding something. "Why won't you tell me anything anymore?" Haruka says without thinking.

"Haru..." Makoto reaches his hand out, gently touching Haruka's cheek. "I don't mean to hide things from you..."

"Don't lie."

"I'll tell you everything s-soon, alright?" Makoto says. "Just not now."

"That doesn't help anything, when it's making me worry about you," Haruka says. His voice is shaking, and he hates the way it sounds. 

"Just, please, it's nothing to worry about, I promise." 

Haruka still doesn’t believe him, but he doesn’t think he can really argue the point much more. “You really will tell me everything?”

“...Yes, of course." Makoto sounds hesitant, so Haruka knows it would be completely possible for Makoto to spend a month in here without Haruka learning anything at all. 

"...Okay."

He'd really just have to try being optimistic for now.


	5. it's kind of a nice feeling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything is resolved happily, again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting jealous of people who can pump out fic chapters over the span of days or even like weeks. Well.
> 
> Also, I mentioned notes I wanted to put last time and so I'm addressing them at the end. It's been like a month so I probably don't remember them all but _y'know_.
> 
> And hey the rating went up haha. Wonder what could possibly go on in this chapter.

Makoto isn't in the bedroom when Haruka wakes up in the morning. Haruka takes a while to drag himself out of bed, hoping he could just peek out and notice Makoto and then go back to sleep. He’s curious, but it doesn’t seem dire or anything.

Haruka doesn't see him right away, and doesn't hear him moving around anywhere else in the house. Haruka looks around, not that there’s many places to hide, until he notices a notebook resting on the counter that hadn't been there the previous night. He picks it up.

_"Sorry I left without saying good morning! I had to leave early to get to work, and I didn't want to wake you...I'll see you later today! –Makoto"_

It takes Haruka a moment to realize that Makoto meant the actual part time job he has, and not the stripping thing he's been doing. On a normal day, he might stop by to hang around Makoto while he works, but in light of recent events, he decides to stay behind. He picks the notepad up so he can put it back where it belongs before walking back into the kitchen. 

With thoughts of Makoto in his head, Haruka starts to consider his home in terms of its ability to house two people. It's not very large, and there's only one bed, though that can't really be helped. He'd considered getting a guest futon once or twice in the past, but he never really felt like taking the time to purchase one, and there wouldn't be much space to put it anywhere in the first place. 

He thinks about the contents of his fridge as well, and how there probably isn't a decent amount of food for him as well as Makoto (especially since Rin took off with his eggs). Even if Makoto isn’t staying long, he decides that it would be best if they go grocery shopping at some point. For now, he figures that he should at least buy something to make a mostly decent dinner, instead of the shabby, small pieces of grilled fish Haruka usually had. He goes to the corner store and picks up a couple of things, at least enough to make something that had some semblance of being a meal. 

Haruka starts cooking dinner in the evening, and he wonders if he should try talking to Makoto again. He'd shot down Rin's idea before, but he's not all that sure if Makoto would open up to him without the use of persistent asking. He decides that as soon as Makoto gets back, he'll try again to get him to explain things.

Haruka is still in the process of cooking when Makoto walks through the door. "I'm home!" he calls out cheerfully. Haruka glances over, and Makoto smiles brightly at him.

"Something happen?"

Makoto shrugs. "Nothing in particular? It's just been a good day, is all," he says. "I did start thinking, though...it's kind of a nice feeling, coming home to you." He grins a little wider, his cheeks somewhat flushed.

"I see..." Haruka says. He turns back to the food so Makoto won't notice that he’s blushing as well. 

Haruka is somewhat amazed at how Makoto's managed to ruin his plan completely, within minutes of him walking into the house. He can't bring up anything _now_ — Makoto looks so happy, saying something to ruin his mood seems almost criminal. "...We need to go grocery shopping," he tells him instead. "I don't really have a lot to eat in here..."

"Alright!" Makoto says. He makes his way into the kitchen, and hovers behind Haruka to take a peek at what he's making. "We can go sometime this week, if that's alright with you."

"Yeah, okay." 

"Sounds good!" Makoto nods, then turns and heads off toward the bedroom. 

Haruka watches him leave with a sigh. Looking at Makoto now, he realizes that he doesn't _want_ to ask him until he breaks. As curious as he is, making Makoto uncomfortable doesn't sit right with him, especially now that he's living here. 

He won't ask Makoto anything else, he decides, unless it looks like he's been hurt again. 

-

Haruka tries to avoid speaking to Makoto over the next couple of days, staying home in favor of following Makoto out. Whenever Makoto speaks to him first, Haruka responds with blunt, one-syllable answers and cuts off conversations before they begin. On the day they actually go grocery shopping, he just sits back and lets Makoto pick out what he wants without offering any input. Makoto picks out everything Haruka would have wanted, though, which makes him feel a little guilty for ignoring him so much.

Haruka wakes up early one day, earlier than Makoto would normally be going to work. He glances over Makoto, still snoring softly next to him, and he stands up to make his way into the kitchen.

He makes breakfast for himself but, feeling sleepy and absent minded, he realizes too late that he’s made more than he really needs to eat. Not wanting to waste anything, he starts looking for something to pack the leftovers away into, when he hears Makoto’s alarm go off. He leaves everything where it is.

Haruka walks back into the bedroom, where Makoto is just getting up. His hair is disheveled, sticking out at various angles, and his eyes are unfocused when he glances at the doorway. "Oh...Haru," he says sleepily. "You're up early."

"Yeah," Haruka agrees. "...I made breakfast."

Makoto yawns, stretching his arms out. "Hm? Really?" 

"It's on the table," Haruka says. He doesn't have anything else he needs to do so early in the morning, but he feels his face heat up so he leaves the room anyway. 

Something about that events triggers a change in the way they’ve been living. Haruka gets up early a second time, purposefully making breakfast for Makoto, and he starts to speak to Makoto with complete sentences again. He goes so far as to pack a lunch for Makoto the day after that, which Makoto gets excited enough about that it makes Haruka smile just a little.

The tenseness that had clouded them before seems to lift, like things had reset to the easygoing way they had always been. Haruka isn't sure if it was just because of him letting go of his own stubbornness for once, but regardless of what caused it, he eagerly welcomes the change. 

It makes living with Makoto become something nice. It reminds Haruka a little of the scenarios he used to imagine when he was younger, back when his crush was new and fairly embarrassing. They eat meals together, they spend more free time alone together in Haruka’s house, and at night they continue to share Haruka's bed, finally relaxed enough that they don’t sleep awkwardly back to back. Occasionally, Makoto drapes an arm over him in his sleep, and Haruka nestles closer without guilt, because Makoto continues to hold him tightly even when he's awake in the morning. They skip over the more carnal ideas that Haruka’s hormonal mind had provided, but overall, Haruka almost wants to say their arrangement is a little romantic.

There _are_ times when Makoto quietly goes out late at night, not mentioning where he's off to, but Haruka doesn't let himself think about it.

-

"I wonder what ever happened to a couple days," Haruka says eventually. It's been probably over a month by now, though he hadn’t actually been keeping track of the days. The fact that Makoto had claimed to plan to stay for only a few days completely slipped his mind, and this is the first time that fact has ever really returned to him.

"Hmm...I guess I did say a couple days before, didn't I..." Makoto closes his eyes in thought. "I must have lost track."

"My place must be nice, if you got so distracted," Haruka says, a smirk playing on the edge of his lips.

"It really is," Makoto says. He pauses, looking genuinely concerned now. "I haven't overstayed my welcome, have I?"

"No," Haruka says. "I...really like having you here."

Makoto smiles at that. “You do?”

“Mm...It’s really nice. Living with you,” Haruka says. It’s an understatement, and he gets the feeling that Makoto knows that, too.

He doesn't realize how close their faces have gotten until he notices how suddenly clear the brilliant green of Makoto's eyes is. "...I'm glad you think so," Makoto says softly. 

Haruka’s gaze flits down to Makoto’s mouth, and his body shifts forward slightly. His eyes raise to meet Makoto’s again, and he’s about to pull back with an apology, but Makoto closes the distance between them before the thought even processes fully. Makoto's lips press against his, and Haruka kisses back immediately. 

The kiss is much more gentle than their first, Haruka notices. It isn't desperate like before, Makoto's lips moving against his without urgency, like they have all the time in the world. His hands move up to frame Haruka's face, his thumbs rubbing Haruka's cheeks softly. 

Makoto pulls back slowly, like he has to force the movement out of himself. "I'm sorry, Haru," he says, his voice almost a whisper, "if I surprised you..."

Haruka leans forward, pressing his forehead against Makoto's. "It was a good surprise."

"I'm glad." Makoto smiles and kisses him again. 

The next time he tries to pull away, Haruka grabs him by the face and they start up again, twice as intently as they had before. It's still gentle, but there's enough passion in it that it makes Haruka let out a soft gasp and cling onto Makoto's arms. 

Haruka wants to get closer, and he makes a move to push Makoto onto his back, to which he willingly complies. Haruka's knee falls between Makoto's legs when he lays on top of him, which makes his thigh press up against Makoto's crotch. Makoto whimpers quietly in response.

Haruka breaks the kiss, propping himself up on his elbows as he looks down at Makoto. "We don't have to go any farther than this, if you don't want to..."

Makoto smiles softly up at him. "We can if you want to, Haru."

"No." Haruka stares him down sternly, making Makoto blink in surprise. "I'm asking if _you_ want to."

"I...I really would like to," Makoto says. He looks very sincere, which drives away the rest of Haruka's doubt. "If you'd let me, I'd really like to touch you..."

"Go ahead, then." Haruka barely manages to get all his words out before he's leaning back down to kiss Makoto again. 

Makoto reaches up to run his hands underneath Haruka's shirt. Haruka expects only touches, but Makoto grips his waist and flips him over onto his back. Haruka is a little upset that he's broken the kiss, but that complaint leaves his mind when Makoto leans down to press a kiss against Haruka's neck. He sucks at the skin a bit, drawing a whine out of Haruka. Haruka grabs onto Makoto’s hair to pull him back, a motion that took more willpower than most things he’s done in recent memory.

"If you leave a mark, people will notice..." Haruka says, breathing unevenly.

Makoto looks down at him. "Does that bother you?"

Haruka gives the question short seconds of thought before he turns his head and tilts his chin up. "...No."

Makoto smiles at him before he's back at Haruka's neck, a little rougher with teeth scraping lightly against him. His hands slide underneath Haruka's shirt again, lingering now to caress his skin as he drags the fabric of the shirt upwards. He kisses Haruka’s collarbone, then his chest, and makes his way down until his lips brush up against Haruka’s hipbone. Haruka watches Makoto's hands move to undo his fly, push his jeans down his hips, and then his head falls back as Makoto's lips press against him through cloth. 

Makoto mouths at the front of Haruka's underwear, Haruka squeezing his eyes tight and biting down on his lip to keep back the sounds he wanted to make. It’s not enough to hold off the groan he makes when Makoto pulls him out completely, and he feels the first touch of Makoto’s lips on him directly. He turns his head, the side of his face against the floor, and brings his hand up to bite down hard on his knuckles.

Makoto reaches up to touch Haruka’s cheek, the motion making Haruka jolt a little in surprise. “Don’t look away, Haru,” he says gently. His breath ghosts over Haruka’s length as he speaks, feeling cool against the heated skin.

Haruka considers ignoring him and keeping his head turned, but Makoto’s voice is compelling enough that he obliges. He props himself up on his elbows again so he can watch. Makoto smiles sweetly up at him before he leans back down, pressing his lips against the tip of Haruka's cock. He opens his mouth to slide down, and Haruka shivers and nearly lets his head hit the floor again.

Makoto's mouth feels much better than his hands, Haruka thinks dazedly. Watching him like this, lips sliding along Haruka's length, licking and suckingat him, makes Haruka feel so, incredibly dirty. But Makoto looks so good like this that he couldn't have turned away even if Makoto hadn't asked him to watch. 

Haruka's breath comes out unevenly in harsh gasps, soft groans slipping out of him that he can't stifle. He's focusing too much on holding himself back, he realizes, and his concentration wavers as he lets himself watch Makoto more carefully. 

He notices for the first time how _into_ this Makoto seems. He can't see Makoto's face very well from this angle, but he can hear him making soft noises around him, and one of his hands is gripping Haruka's hip so tightly that he can feel it shaking with the effort. Haruka can't help but marvel at how affected Makoto's gotten, when Haruka hasn't even put his hands on him yet. 

It really makes Haruka want to touch him.

He sits up straight, hands reaching down to grab the sides of Makoto's face and pull him upward. He can see his face clearly now, his cheeks tinged red and his eyes heavily lidded, while his lips are still parted a bit as he tries to catch his breath. Haruka is so struck by him that he kisses him immediately, more than a little overzealous. He discerns too late that he'd heard Makoto make a sound like he was going to say something, but by then Makoto is already kissing back. 

Haruka's hands are unsteady when he reaches down to Makoto's pants, and he fumbles a bit trying to get them open, Makoto's lips against his working as too good of a distraction. Haruka wraps his fingers around Makoto's length, making his breath hitch. Feeling Makoto hard and hot in his hand is much better than it probably should be, but Haruka can't let himself care about that at all. He pulls away from the kiss, resting his head against Makoto's shoulder so he can hear the quiet moans that escape him as he's being touched. He recalls briefly the way Rei's always spoken about things being beautiful, and he doesn't think he's ever understood it more fully than the way he does now, listening to Makoto like this. He feels like he never wants to let go of him.

Makoto's hands grip his hips, pulling Haruka forward until he slides on top of his lap, making Haruka shiver at the contact. Makoto rolls his hips upward, and Haruka relinquishes his grip in favor of wrapping his arms around Makoto's waist while they grind against each other.

He runs his hands along Makoto's back, until eventually something makes Makoto flinch and edge away from the touch. Curious, Haruka runs his fingers back over that spot to garner the same reaction, glancing over Makoto's shoulder to look down the expanse of his back. 

There's a dark spot underneath his fingertip, and through the haze of his mind, it takes him a few moments to realize that he's looking at a bruise.

"Did something happen...?" Haruka asks. His voice sounds hoarse as he speaks, so he clears his throat.

"It's...it's nothing important." Makoto thrusts up harder, like he wants to distract Haruka from the subject. Haruka bites his lip, but doesn't let the subject drop.

"I don’t care if it’s not important,” Haruka says. “Just tell me.”

"I— _Haru_ ," Makoto groans. "Do we really have to do this now...?"

"Yes." Haruka pulls his head off of Makoto's shoulders, sitting up on his knees to avoid any contact with Makoto. Even through his lust-addled state, he gives Makoto the most serious look he can muster up.

"If you don't tell me what keeps happening to you, I'm not letting you stay here."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @ghosts' comment on chapter 3 (I felt like the answer's important enough to put here rather than just reply): As for how old they are, they're all around early-twenties...Rei especially would have to be at least 20, since I doubt he would condone underage drinking so easily (haha).  
> For jobs, I don't bring up Rei's or Nagisa's because it's never particularly relevant. Rin and Haru have both attended university, but neither of them have jobs (the former of which may possibly become a plot point in a possible sequel/next part of a series which takes place in this same universe that I possibly may or may not be writing). Haruka has something going on when it comes to jobs but that will probably come up later (it was actually supposed to come up in this chapter but I edited it out). 
> 
> Additionally, shoutout to Phantomdoodler for being a kind of beta reader, and also for drawing great fanart of this fic ---> http://phantomdoodler.tumblr.com/post/70347437892/


	6. clearly a mess without him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Huh, sucks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while oops
> 
> Wow I can't believe I got it all wrong. The new ed clearly shows that it's Rin who becomes the stripper, not Makoto. Oh well.
> 
> Serious note about season 2 though. I don't actually have plans to watch this season so in all likelihood I will incorporate nothing from season 2. If I'm unlucky some stuff in this fic will probably be contradicted by new episodes. If that happens...ignore that, because that's what I plan on doing also.
> 
> ................Also Sousuke is dead. I killed him

Makoto hasn’t even been gone for an entire day before Haruka becomes certain that he fucked up.

His house has become remarkably lonely without Makoto around, or even the promise that he would walk through the door later. Haruka’s lived alone for plenty of his life, but Makoto living with him for so long has spoiled him. His home just feels way too big now.

Haruka goes back to eating only plain grilled mackerel, Makoto’s absence leaving him unmotivated to cook anything else. He doesn’t notice how bad it’s gotten until he opens the fridge to find that he’s completely run out of mackerel, with almost the whole rest of the refrigerator left untouched. He gets dressed to go to the grocery store, and tries not to think about how long it’s been since he last left the house.

He tries to be single-minded and only buy mackerel, but he keeps nearly picking up groceries typical of what he’d buy with Makoto. He does a good enough job stopping himself until he ends up grabbing a snack that Makoto’s fairly fond of anyway, and gets frustrated enough that he accidentally knocks a lot of the other boxes down when he tries to return the box he’d picked up.

“Oh, Haruka!”

The noise apparently attracted someone’s attention, and Haruka turns to see Gou waving over at him. There’s a girl with her, and it takes a bit of mental searching to remember what her name is, exactly (Chigusa, right), and she waves as well.

Gou walks toward him, Chigusa trailing behind after her, and kneels down to start picking up the boxes that had fallen. “Here, I’ll help—” she says. Haruka wants to tell her that she doesn’t _need_ to, but she’s gotten everything picked up in her arms before he gets the chance.

“It’s been a while!” Gou says as she begins placing that boxes back on the shelf.

“It has…” Haruka says. He hasn’t seen her since at least before Makoto started living with him— and he immediately chides himself for using Makoto as a unit of time. “What brings you here?” he asks. Fairly uselessly, he realizes, because how many reasons can there be to enter a grocery store, really.

“Oh, y’know, just buying some stuff for dinner tonight,” Gou says. Haruka feels grateful that she’s playing along. “We’ve been eating a lot of junk lately, so I thought I’d cook something for once.”

Chigusa sighs somewhat longingly. “I’ve been looking forward to it all day!”

Gou nudges her with her elbow. “C’mon, I’m not a world-class chef or anything,” she says, before turning her attention back to Haruka. “How about you? You must make dinner for Makoto all the time, huh?”

“For Makoto?” Haruka repeats, a little startled.

“Rin told me a while ago that he moved in with you,” Gou says. She rolls her eyes. “The way he talks about it, he makes it sound like you got married or something.”

“It was...more of a temporary thing,” Haruka mumbles.

“Oh, so he’s left already?”

“...Yeah.” Haruka decides that he doesn’t really need to explain _all_ of the details.

“Ah. Bro sure knows how to exaggerate a situation,” Gou says, shrugging. “Well, anyway, we’ll leave you to shopping. Nice seeing you!”

Gou places the last box on the shelf before she walks off, Chigusa following along with her. Chigusa reaches out for Gou’s hand as they walk, and Gou intertwines their fingers.

Haruka isn’t very well acquainted with Chigusa, and he hasn’t been around the two of them together enough to get a grasp of what their relationship is like, but seeing the two of them brings up some jealousy within him. Gou and Chigusa were friends at first, he remembers, but he doubts that they went through the same awkward tiptoeing around each other that Haruka and Makoto had been doing for years. For all he knew, there could have been a confession the moment either of them was aware of their own feelings, and their relationship started up without any hassle at all.

He wishes things with Makoto could be that easy.

-

Haruka starts up cleaning the next morning, hoping the busy work would distract him from thinking about Makoto. It doesn’t work at all.

It’s the first time he notices that Makoto hadn’t taken all his stuff with him when he left. While Haruka’s cleaning, he comes across a shirt clearly too big for him, and it only takes him a second to remember that it's Makoto's. Haruka isn't really sure what to do with it, so he just chucks it onto his bed. Maybe he could return it eventually, or something.

He momentarily manages to push it out of his mind until he picks up a book he remembers Makoto reading, and tries to ignore that until he puts it away. Then he comes across the notebook Makoto used to write notes for him in, and then another one of his shirts, and he realizes how counterproductive this all is when it comes to trying to not think about Makoto.

Haruka gives up, flopping down on his bed. He had forgotten that the shirt was still on there until he breathes in and suddenly smells Makoto. It’s...strangely comforting, considering how badly he’s been trying to _stop_ thinking about Makoto. It feels sort of like Makoto’s still there with him. He closes his eyes, not falling asleep, but pressing his face harder against the shirt and breathing in deep again.

It all feels really, really sad.

Haruka lays there like that for a long time before he hears the front door open, and Nagisa’s voice comes from the front of the house. “Haru-chan! Mako-chan!” Haruka figures he should probably get up to greet him, but he isn’t motivated to move at all.

Nagisa continues calling out, and Haruka vaguely hears Rin’s voice say something muffled before his bedroom door is abruptly opened.

“Haru-chan!” Nagisa says, as though he hasn’t already said it enough times within the past minute. “...What are you doing?”

Haruka responds without lifting his head. “I’ve been smelling Makoto’s shirt for the past hour because I’m upset.”

He’s met with quite a few moments of silence.

Rin makes a couple sounds like he’s about to say something, but it takes him a while to get any words out. “You...you didn’t have to _say_ that, Haru.”

Haruka ignores him. “Also, if you’re looking for Makoto, he doesn’t live here anymore,” he says instead. “I told him to leave a while ago.”

“Is that why you’re smelling his shirt?” Nagisa asks, way too casually.

Haruka nods without lifting his head, until Rin suddenly yanks him upwards by his shirt collar. “At least _stop_ if you’re going to hold a conversation!” he says. He pauses, frowning. “...Were you crying?”

“No.” Now that it’s been brought up, though, Haruka thinks that maybe his face does feel a little wet.

Rin groans, releasing Haruka’s shirt in favor of crossing his arms. “You’re clearly a mess without him,” he says. “The hell did you kick him out for?”

Haruka sighs, and finally decides to sit up properly. “He had a bruise on his back, and I told him I wouldn’t let him stay if he didn’t tell me what happened,” he says. “And…he didn’t tell me, obviously.”

“What? Is that it?” Rin asks. He looks downright offended by the explanation. “The fuck kinda reason is that?”

Nagisa ignores Rin’s complaint, and sits down on the bed next to Haruka. “Haru-chan...I think you should apologize to Mako-chan,” he says. “You feel bad about making him leave, right?” Haruka nods slowly. “So you’ve gotta make things right between you two!”

“...I’ll think about it,” Haruka says.

“Just fucking call him already!” Rin snaps. “And stop being so weird about his clothes, too. Holy shit.”

That doesn’t convince him any more than what Nagisa said, but Haruka decides that he’ll try anyway.

-

Haruka can’t bring himself to call Makoto until the next day and, not unexpectedly, Makoto doesn’t pick up. He tries again later, but still doesn’t get a response. After the third time, he can still convince himself that Makoto is just busy, and he keeps missing him, but when he’s called twelve times throughout the day and gotten no response, he’s forced to accept that Makoto is probably just ignoring him.

He feels a little torn on how to react to that. He first thinks that he should keep trying, then thinks that if Makoto doesn’t want to talk to him, he should just give up, and then keeps flip-flopping between the two.

He realizes that it’s not just Makoto being gone that’s getting to him. It isn’t the loneliness, really, it’s guilt. He’s never _hurt_ Makoto like this as long as they’ve known each other, and he doesn’t think he’s ever felt worse about anything. He really, really needs to make things right between them again. 

He decides to stop calling Makoto, and goes straight to his house instead.

Ren answers the door when Haruka arrives. “Is Makoto with you?” he asks immediately. Haruka is caught off guard by how worried he looks.

“What? No,” Haruka says. “I came here to talk to him.”

“Why here…?” Ren asks, eyebrows drawn together in confusion. “Isn’t he staying with you?”

“No, I...didn’t he come back here?” Haruka asks.

Ren opens his mouth to answer, but Ran’s voice from somewhere inside the house interrupts him. “Is that Haru-chan!?” She runs toward the doorway seconds later, slipping a bit from the poor traction provided by her socks. “Why won’t big bro answer his phone!?” she demands.

“We’ve been trying to call him for a while, but he never picks up,” Ren elaborates. “And...he doesn’t live with you anymore?”

“No...” Haruka says. He _definitely_ doesn’t need to explain all the details to Makoto’s younger siblings. “But I thought he’d come back here.”

The twins exchange a concerned glance. “C-Come in, um…” Ren says hesitantly. “I mean, I don’t want to keep talking about this at our doorway, so…”

Rin, Nagisa, and Rei are soon called over to join the conversation, because they’re all much better at this type (or any type) of discussion than Haruka is. It takes a while for the conversation to actually get started once they arrive, because the second the fact that Makoto’s missing is put out there, Haruka finds himself having to dodge an attack from Rin.

“God _dammit_ , Haru!” Rin being angry is nothing new at all, but it’s been a while since Haruka’s seen him this _furious_. “If something happened to Makoto because you couldn’t get your fucking relationship drama in order—”

“M-Matsuoka-san!” Ren interrupts frantically. “It’s not— I mean, we know he’s okay, he just...hasn’t been talking to anyone.”

Rin looks only sort of pacified by the explanation, but he backs down anyway. “Haru,” he says, staring at him seriously, “you’re gonna move your ass and apologize to him _now_ , right?”

“I’ve _been_ trying,” Haruka says shortly. “He just...hasn’t responded.”

“...Oh.” Rin actually looks sympathetic, which makes Haruka feel more pathetic than ever. “That...that sounds like it sucks, Haru.”

“Don’t call him, then!” Nagisa says. Haruka glances toward him, having almost forgotten that he was there. “Go right up to Mako-chan in person and pour your heart out!”

“That’s why I came here,” Haruka says. More or less, anyway. “But I can’t do that now if I don’t know where he is.”

“Then that’s why we’re going to investigate!” Nagisa says, now addressing the whole room. “We’ll check out all the usual places Mako-chan can be found! ...I mean, aside from here. Or Haru-chan’s house.”

“It might be helpful to check his place of work during his shift,” Rei suggests.

“Which one, the convenience store or the strip club?” Ran asks. Everyone looks at her in surprise, except for Ren, who just looks confused.

“...Don’t tell me he actually told you about that,” Rin says.

“Well, no,” Ran says, shrugging. “But I figured it out.”

“What? What strip club?” Ren asks.

“That isn’t really important,” Rei says quickly. “But...it would probably be most effective to check both places.”

Rin makes an indignant noise. “Oh no, I am not going back there,” he says. “I’m only going to the convenience store, thanks.”

“You can take Ran-chan and Ren-chan to the convenience store with you,” Nagisa says. “And me, Rei-chan, and Haru-chan will check the strip club!”

Ran pouts. “Awww, I wanted to go to the strip club!”

“ _What_ strip club?” Ren asks. He sounds a little distressed, but the question is ignored again.

“...I’ll go to both,” Haruka says. He _is_ the one who actually needs to talk to Makoto, after all.

“That makes our groups a little uneven, though,” Nagisa says. He looks deep in thought for a few moments, like the number of people per group was a vital part of the plan. “How about we invite Ai-chan to the strip club, too!”

“How about you don’t!?” Rin snaps immediately.

Nagisa rolls his eyes at him. “What? You’re not Ai-chan’s mom, Rin-chan. You can’t just keep me from asking him.”

“I can, and I will!”

The two of them bicker back and forth about Rin’s ability to make decisions for Aiichiro for a while, until it looks as though they had forgotten what the purpose of the discussion was in the first place.

If this is how their plan starts out, Haruka wonders if they’ll ever find Makoto at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just leave a fucking voice mail


End file.
